A FORMER soldier was caught with £160,000 worth of cocaine in his garden shed.

Mark Bradley was one of three men jailed for a total of 13-and-a-half years yesterday for supplying cocaine.

Bradley, 30, who served two tours of Northern Ireland with the Cheshire Regiment, was locked up for six years after Liverpool crown court heard he was a “commercial wholesaler”.

Ben Morris, prosecuting, told how police carried out simultaneous raids on the homes of the three men in Wirral.

Inside Bradley’s home, in Hulmewood, Bebington, they found drug paraphernalia, but it was in garden that they found the most significant haul.

Inside a shed they found 13 blocks of cocaine weighing 3.2kg.

Michael Bagley, defending, told the court father-of two Bradley, who has run a taxi firm and worked as doorman since leaving the forces, had started using cocaine socially but had become indebted and began to supply it.

While officers made the discovery at Bradley’s home, their colleagues were uncovering 130g of cocaine, worth about £6,500, at the home of Bradley’s associate Mark Ireland, 32, of Argyle Street South, Birkenhead.

Meanwhile £250 worth of cocaine and a tick-list were uncovered at the home of co-accused Colin Bennett, 30, of Tudor Road, Rock Ferry.

All three men pleaded guilty to possession of class A drugs with intent to supply.

He jailed Ireland for four years and Bennett for three-and-a-half years.